Vegan Hot Pot

So after we went to lunch on Sunday, Susan and I hit up the asian grocery stores in the valley.  We visited a Thai grocer and Burlington.  I stocked up on the lamyong fake meats (they had the 'good' veggie 'ham' FINALLY) and bought this interesting package:

Mixed!  Woo!

So I made it for dinner on Monday night after my usual bike ride (72.1km so far this year).

I opened the package to reveal this tiny ziplock bag:

Not suspicious at all

It was the hot pot broth.  I added it to 2000ml of boiling water (why not say 2L?) and then chopped up the hot pot 'meats':

There's fake prawns ('frawns'), fake sausage, tofu and other more seafoody things

It didn't say to chop them up, but I'm a cheapskate.

Added to the broth:

BLURRY!

I chopped up cabbage, cauliflower, pak choy and carrots to put in with the soup and then put it all together.

Hot! Pot!

It was pretty good.  We added a dash of Kikkoman Soy sauce to each bowl.  We only use Kikkoman as directed on the little bottle ;)

The broth: could have been a little saltier (thus the soy), but pretty much reminded me of hot pot/won ton broth.  As a carb freak, I knew I should have added in rice noodles (we definitely need bigger soup bowls - not enough depth to add noodles on top of the veggies you can see sticking out).

The fake meats: tasted pretty much the same as other fake seafoods I've had (the non-seaweed based ones).  Reminded me a lot of the fake meats you'd find in the Laksa at the now defunct ID Cafe in the Valley (sniff).

It was a nice change for dinner.  We have leftovers for dinner tonight, so hopefully it will be just as good.

Kuan Yin revisit

Kuan Yin has been a favourite of ours ever since we discovered it at least 9 years ago.  Late in December I discovered that they now have a blog (and a Gold Coast outlet that we have yet to try - when there's Yum Cha to have at Mermaid Beach, why would you go elsewhere? ;)).  They now do desserts!  So Susan (of Eating for Animals) and I decided to go and try out the desserts.

Of course, they were out of desserts today (sigh), but we still ate all the foods (WARNING: photos taken with my Galaxy 2, so the photos only give you a vague idea of how good it tasted).

First we had the intriguingly named Phantom Chips - taro and sweet potato rolls.

Phantom Chips

This is the Peking 'Duck" roll.  The 'Duck' is quite crispy, but the roll is done up fairly loosely so the filling is want to escape.  If I was making it I'd be rolling it up a lot tighter....

Peking 'Duck' Roll

'Duck' Roll close view

This is the 'Chicken' Wings.  They serve it with a side of chips, so perhaps they should be renamed 'Chicken' Nuggets?

Spicy, and good

They also do a Spring Roll.  It's significantly longer than the Spring Rolls you're used to.  They're served with a spicy sauce and served in a champagne glass.  Kind of hilarious for a non-alcoholic Asian cafe.

Spring Rolls

We also had the classic Fried Dumplings.  Always tasty.  Always falls apart.

Dumplings

Michael (the owner) said that they should have the Chocolate dessert on the menu next weekend.  I'd suggest going on Friday/Saturday so you can actually get one!

Day 8: Bodega Bay to Fort Bragg

We awoke on Day 8 ready for more Yves "Bacon".  Here you see it grilled with Daiya cheeze.  Another trip favourite.

We went for a walk along the coastline at Bodega Bay.  It was freaking gorgeous:

We saw a DEER!  It ran away too quickly for us to take a photo.  Still, very rad.

Then we headed inland a little and visited Armstrong Grove.  Large trees.  There may have been actual hugging of trees.

We found an all vegan resort in Mendocino (just outside Fort Bragg). Unfortunately it's hella expensive (but we have plans to go back when Cam's a Consultant ;).  Luckily it has a restaurant attached called Ravens' Restaurant.  Wow.  This place blows Millenium out of the water.  We started with cocktails.  I had Sangria and Cam had a Bloody Mary (which began the great Bloody Mary obsession of 2012 that is ongoing):

Amy, in an extremely attractive pose.  Like the t-shirt I got from Old Navy?

The view from our table.  You could see Ravens circling outside.  Freaking gorgeous.

 We started with an amuse bouche.  Tempted to describe it as "amusing".  It was goodly.

Then bread and hummous.  Mmmmm hummous.  Surprisingly, we didn't actually eat much hummous while we were in the USA.  Bread was good too.  Nice and fresh.  If you hadn't noticed, they like serving everything with flowers.  Odd, but interesting.

Then we had a pizetta - that day's one had rocket and pesto.  Goodly.  The base was lovely and crunchy.  Pesto was nice too.

Cam had the Maple Barbeque Tofu.  The glaze-y bit was quite tasty as I recall.

I had the Tamales.  Tamales are just not available in Australia.  I did try making them a few years ago, but as dried corn husks are impossible to find, they didn't turn out well.  Also, dirty rice isn't really that popular in Oz either.
I LOVE Mexican food, and this was probably one of the most amazing Mexican dishes I've ever had (though the one I had at Real Food Daily on day 1 was pretty freaking fantastic too).

Dessert.  OMG, the dessert.  As far as I'm concerned, this was the best dessert of the whole damn trip.

Cam had the pecan torte:

I had the vanilla bean creme brulee.  Wow.  I still dream about this dessert over a month later.  It was creamy (I'm guessing it was a cashew base) and the vanilla bean wasn't overpowering.
The topping was brown sugar (I think).  It was definitely toasted, but the clash of the toasted sugar and creamy custard was outstanding.

They liked serving everything with a flower on the plate.  It was a nice touch, but a little, um, odd?  It certainly makes the photos look good.

If you're heading up the California coast, please stop in at Ravens' Restaurant.  And stay at the Stanford Inn if you can.  They allow pets (which is awesome) and it's a seriously beautiful place.

Day 7: San Francisco to Bodega Bay

We started the day with breakfast at Herbivore - The Earthly Grill in Berkeley.

I had the savoury crepes with marinara sauce.  OMG so good.....

Cam had a combo plate with scrambled tofu, french toast with banana and home fries (which Cam enjoyed, but looked gross to me because of the damn banana):

We got takeaway food for the road.  A brownie:

And a raspberry-vanilla cupcake:

We stocked up at Whole Foods for dinner for the next few nights.  I miss Whole Foods.  So much vegan food.  So cheap (compared to Australia it's cheap, anyway).

Then we headed out over the Golden Gate Bridge.  Took a million photos of the bridge:

 We then drove to Bodega Bay.  I nicknamed it Dawson's Creek.

We checked into a cute little B&B.  Which was insanely expensive, compared to everywhere else we stayed.  For dinner we had frozen meals!

 There's no really attractive photos of dinner, so here's an unattractive one of me mid chew:

Dessert was Justin's Organic Peanut Butter Cups!  NOM!

The frozen meals were okay.  Not fantastic.  I have to say that the mac and cheeze was just frozen pasta with a block of daiya in it that melted.

The best part of dinner was the Yves "Bacon". OMG, that Yves "Bacon".  I can safely say that it was our pick for 'mock meat of the trip'.

Day 6 Dinner: Millenium!

Wow.  This was soooooo long ago now.

So we spent the day shopping around central San Francisco.  We'd booked into Millennium the day before.

It is probably the swankiest vegan restaurant we've ever been to.  Actually, it reminded me of the restaurants in New York you see in Woody Allen movies.  Of course, we felt weird about taking photos of the interior, so there's just the foods....

We decided on the tasting menu.  We started with a pate and bread thingy:

I found the description of the menu from the Facebook page, but it didn't include the pate...
Fall Harvest Menu
October 11-13, 2012

1st Course

Roasted Beet Salad
Belgian Endive, grapes, Meyer lemon-macadamia nut cheese, Zinfandel grape & sage mostarda 

2nd Course
Charred Scallion & Tofu Dumplings mushroom-ginger broth, shiitake & blue chanterelle mushrooms, Ma La oil, spicy pickled chilies

3rd Course
choice of:
Lobster & King Trumpet Mushroom Étouffée
seared Sonoma fresh tempeh with blackening spices, white creamy roasted corn grits,
black eyed peas & collard greens with caramelized smoked onion
Which Cam had:

Bastilla
brik pastry dough, Kuri squash, grilled seitan & dried apricot filling, beluga lentil & tomato tagine, sauteéd fall greens, Fresno chile harissa, cucumber-mint raita, cinnamon-almond dust
Which I had:

We added fries ('cause we were pigs and on holiday damnit):

Dessert
Chocolate Layer Cake
coffee bean cream, chocolate ganache, Lucky Hand Black Lager caramel, peanut brittle, malt chip ice cream

I have to say that my favourite of the meal was the dessert.  It was so good that I didn't notice the coffee in it (Cam loves coffee, I can't stand the smell of the stuff).  We'd definitely recommend going to Millenium if you're in San Francisco!

Day 6: the first meal in San Francisco

So, and obviously I neglected the blog for the rest of the trip. Rest assured that we took lots of food photos to share. (yes, the wedding was beautiful, yes, we'll share photos on Facebook when we get the proper ones)

We decided to spend all of day 6 in the big smoke. We took the train across the bay to Powell, Street station. Which was cool. Ended up in the centre of the city. First stop:the food court at the bottom of a fancy shopping centre.

What did we find? Loving Hut! It was pretty much awesome. (and none of that super annoying indoctrination television in the background!!!!!)

I had a Pho soup.

Cam had a some stuff from the warmer, including the biggest pile of kale I've ever seen!

Our dinner in San Francisco was at a rather fancy restaurant. Millennium deserves a post of its own don't you think? ;)

Day 5: Santa Cruz to Berkeley

We started in Santa Cruz and had the 'free' breakfast at the hotel (which had the worst shower ever made).

We headed into San Francisco.  We stopped at the Legion of Hono(u)r.  We thought it was going to be some sort of war memorial.  Turned out to be a pretty good art museum.  We spent about 90 minutes wandering through.  We really enjoyed it - despite the fact that neither of us know about visual art at all.

We drove down the hill to Baker Beach and got some awesome shots of the Golden Gate bridge (isn't Cam getting good at the artsy shots? :))

We then headed over to Berkeley.  Stopped at a little vegan cafe for a super late lunch.  It wasn't particularly good, so I won't waste your time with those photos.

For dinner we headed to Herbivore - The Earthly Grill.  It was really freaking good. 

Started with cocktails:

We had the vegan nachos:

I had the quesadillas:

Cam had the orange pepper chicken:

We headed to the Albatross Bar for a few drinks after dinner (it was just down the road from our hotel).  It was a pretty cool bar.  They had games, so we played a round of chess, connect 4 and boggle.  I only won at boggle (Cam whopped me at the other ones).

On day 6 we headed into San Francisco on the train. That's for another post!